At last the FAA are getting it, something SFO ATC and you guys who fly in there regularly don't:
If you send a couple of pilots in a widebody across the Pacific for 13 hours being rattled to death by turbulence so you can't sleep, then send them in high on the glide at 90 deg to the runway, head to head with a puddle jumper for 28R and say cleared the visual 28L, stay behind the learjet 2 miles in front, what's going to happen?
999 times out of 1000, the pilot will get a bit hot and sweaty - it's his first visual for 2 years and only his 20th landing in the last 12 months but he'll get the job done with a landing we can all walk away from. Once in a hundred there'll be a few more holes in the cheese (1st time into SFO / minimal hours on type etc) and he won't. It's the sort of challenge I'd relish at the end of a 2 hour daylight sector but at the end of a long haul it's a significant threat.
SFO have been carrying on business as usual so the regulator have had to step in, it's about time IMHO.
With all due respect to you sir I don't agree with your statement and that of many others that think along the same lines.
The facts are they crashed a perfectly serviceable aircraft short of the runway on a beautiful VFR day.
I do not blame the airport authorities and/or their controllers on the way they manage their traffic in and out of the airport.
I will agree that many factors are probably involved in the crash but most if not all of them are pilot related.
Maybe we can include the “Asian Culture” as a role in the accident (not the first time). Maybe fatigued played a role in the accident although there were two crews aboard for this flight. Maybe we can blame Asiana the company in the way they train their pilot. Maybe we can blame Asiana’s SOPs for not being thorough or stringent enough.
Companies that I flew for had restrictions on new crews (whether co-pilot or captains). You needed a certain amount of hours on type in the aircraft before you were released from line indoc.
You needed a certain amount of time and takeoffs before being able to conduct low RVR takeoffs and the same applied to lower than CAT 1 minimums. Perhaps Asiana should also have a minimum hours on type prior to accepting visual approaches.
In the end the buck stops here… It is the pilot’s decision to accept any kind of approach and in accepting a visual you have to understand the rules that go along with it.
If this new captain on type did not feel right or felt he was under pressure by accepting a visual in SFO and continued on what seems to be an unstable approach with perhaps some of the electronics not properly set up (auto throttles) then it proves he wasn’t ready to man the ship as a captain.
And what are we to say about the training captain in the right seat who let the situation go way beyond acceptable. The same can be said about the third pilot in the jump seat. In both cases was that the “Asian Culture” thing going on?
Regardless if a pilot(s) cannot fly on a beautiful VFR day a B777 to a runway with a functioning LOC and PAPI, then perhaps he should not be flying at all.
At any time prior to the approach clearance if he felt uncomfortable with a visual approach or even after they had accepted it he could have done a G/A and ask for radar vectors back in using an instrument approach (The RNAV GPS approach was available).
Less than 10 days prior to the crash I flew into SFO under similar conditions (not as nice). The choices were a visual to both 28s, a LOC only with PAPIs or the RNAV GPS (LPV) approaches.
In the end because I had only been to SFO a couple of times I told the PNF that I wanted the RNAV GPS (LPV) approach… It was a command decision which I thought was the safe way to go to have vertical and lateral guidance.
To this day I don’t understand why a new and low time pilot on type would not want and ask for a stable type approach like a RNAV GPS (LPV) approach to runway 28L… To me it shows poor command decision.
My only 2 cents I intend to say on this subject and crash.